185. Guest: Marty Strong - Leadership Lessons from a Former SEAL

Marty Strong discusses his transition from Navy SEAL to successful businessman, sharing insights on leadership, resilience, and emotional intelligence. He emphasizes accountability and adaptability as essential traits for success, outlining how military experience informs effective business strategies. 
• Marty's journey from a challenging childhood to becoming a Navy SEAL 
• The significance of emotional intelligence in leadership 
• Understanding commander's intent and mission focus 
• The importance of building systems and processes 
• The role of discipline versus flexibility in leadership 
• Insights on accountability in a leadership capacity 
• Marty's passion for writing and sharing knowledge 
• Inspirational message: Embrace opportunities and never quit

https://martystrong.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 Military Mindset Transition to Entrepreneurship
• 12:51 Building Psychological Resilience in Business
• 21:59 Effective Leadership
• 28:36 The Power of Accountability in Leadership
• 37:01 Overcoming Fear

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Yeah, it's Mindset Cafe. We all about that mindset. Gotta stay focused. Now go settle for the last. It's all in your head how you think you manifest. So get ready to rise, cause we about to be the best. Gotta switch it up. Gotta break the old habits. Get your mind right. Turn your dreams into habits. No negative vibes, only positive vibes. What is up, guys? Welcome to another episode of the Mindset Cafe podcast. It is your boy, devin, and we are joined today and I am honored to have him on the podcast. Marty Strong, he is a retired Navy SEAL officer and combat veteran. He is a CEO and a bestselling author as well. He has had an extraordinary journey and you guys already know. On the Mindset Cafe, we're all about learning from other people's journeys and their stories and helping us condense our timeline to success. So, without giving too much away from his journey, letting him dive into it. Marty, thank you so much for taking the time today.

Speaker 1: 0:56

Thanks for having me Devin, so let's dive straight in. I mean, the one that really stuck out and everything was obviously probably the Navy SEALs, and I'm sure you've talked about it a bunch. But what inspired you to join the, the military, or to the, to the navy?

Speaker 2: 1:12

well, I joined the navy to get ready from nebraska so yeah, I was 16 years old.

Speaker 2: 1:18

Uh parents were divorced. They had a alcoholic mom with a lot of mental issues. So I was able to um forge my forge, her signature on the uh earlier enlistment or early enlistment documents that the recruiter gave me. And uh got into what's called the early entry program so you can sign up up to a year before you actually show up in boot camp. So I locked that in when I was still 16. You actually show up in boot camp, so I locked that in when I was still 16. So I had my escape route all ready to go. And then uh joined the navy.

Speaker 2: 1:51

Um, right after my 17th birthday, went straight into boot camp, came out of boot camp and went into um, a training program in the navy. They call them a schools or for your primary job or function in the navy, and mine was radar and air traffic control. So I did that for about 17 weeks and uh did real well, graduated, top my class. I got meritoriously promoted and I got to pick my orders to where I wanted to go out of the available ships and I picked one in the Mediterranean and they gave me my orders on a Friday and they said here you go and they read out the orders and they said a report to underwater demolition seal trading, coronado, california.

Speaker 2: 2:35

And it's a Friday afternoon, there's a snowstorm going on and I've got tickets airline tickets from Chicago to San Diego, but not to where we're supposed to be going. And I called my dad up at the airport and he says "'Well, that's why they call them orders, son. "'so get there and find somebody. "'and they'll figure it all out'. And what happened was I got there and I found somebody and he talked me into volunteering for the Seals. So that's how I got into it.

Speaker 1: 3:05

That's awesome. I mean that's a. That's a crazy story. I mean it's so cool to to meet people that are, you know, veterans and have transitioned into the business world, you know, becoming entrepreneurs and authors and stuff. I mean more.

Speaker 1: 3:19

So you know some of the other names that you know from that, I've got to read and learn a little bit of their stories. You know, like you know, from that, I've got to read and learn a little bit of their stories. You know, like you know the famous ones of David Goggins and you know Jocko Willings and stuff. But there's so many more that are coming out now and that are telling their story. Right, and that's the cool thing is like getting to hear the stories and how it adapts into business and some of the things that you learn from the different branches of the military. But the mindset that you can transition over into business and into life and into your own personal development, right, what was that transition point for you from the SEALs to, you know, realizing that you wanted to get into the entrepreneurial space, or was there a time in between after basically retiring from service?

Speaker 2: 4:10

There wasn't any time in between. My back was messed up from a parachute accident. I was coming up on my 20th year you can retire starting on your 20th anniversary and so I figured I'm going to get out, I'm going to go to law school, become a lawyer. And then at the last second I decided no, I'm going to go interview with a bunch of financial services firms and I got picked up to do that. So when I retired, I went straight into the money management business and I had an undergraduate and a graduate degree in business. So I knew a little bit about it.

Speaker 2: 4:44

But what I didn't know is I didn't know how to sell and I didn't realize I had to go out and find my own clients. I had to convince people to open accounts with me and give me their life savings or the proceeds of their business sale or whatever it was, and to trust me, you know. And it wasn't really so much about being, being or acting smart or having all the right answers, or it wasn't really so much about being, being or acting smart or having all the right answers, or it wasn't about math. It was about do people trust you? When they look at you and they speak to you. They feel like you're going to take care of them and take care of their. You know their well, uh well, and sometimes very difficultly um, earned mistakes, so I didn't know that going into it.

Speaker 2: 5:23

But anybody that's been in in the military has been taught to lead and for the most part they've been taught to lead in a crisis situation. And when I say train, I mean you know you do lots and lots of exercises and training where the training staff comes up and they hypothetically kill the person in charge and the next person is to step up and keep doing the job up and they hypothetically kill the person in charge and the next person is to step up and keep doing the job. And that's, um, that becomes so much a part of the way you're raised in the military, especially in the special forces, special operations community, that it's just second nature that if somebody's stumbling, you're going to help them out. If somebody in charge needs help, you're going to step up and say what can I do for you? So you're really good, you're a really good follower.

Speaker 2: 6:05

Because you've had to play the role of leader, you know how important it is to be a good follower and that kind of melding of follower leader off and on focusing during crisis and failure. It kind of turns you into somebody who's willing to kind of roll with the situation and be helpful or be a competent leader, whatever is required. At the time, and when people are looking at the markets and they're afraid of what's going to happen to their money, they get very emotional and it turned out again I didn't anticipate this that what they really needed is they needed leadership. They needed somebody to look at them square in the eyes and say you've got a good plan. We've got a really good plan set up. It's a multi-year plan. Take a deep breath.

Speaker 2: 6:53

And mean it I mean somebody had been in much, much worse situations. You know life and death, and so this wasn't really life and death. This is just. You know it's the markets but, and so this wasn't really life and death. This is just. You know it's the markets, but in their mind it was life and death. So that's very comforting for them to see somebody who's been in the military and been through that kind of stress and have that poise in the moment when everybody else is kind of losing their heads. And that was something I never anticipated having, you know, any value. I thought that was just related to the military experience, but it actually translated, transferred over both when I managed money but also when I started leading companies later on.

Speaker 1: 7:33

No, I think that's so awesome and I mean I'm sure your your emotional intelligence in in the military, you know it's it definitely gets tested right, and it's one of those things where that's one of the reasons why you can handle things at that are high pressure and not have such an emotional response to it, because it's just like, okay, what do we need to do?

Speaker 1: 7:48

You take, you know, leadership and you keep it going. But one parallel that I just noticed or just thought of when you were saying that is there's a, there's a leader, and when you got replaced, you know, like, if you have to replace the leader, it's how well. Well, the military has created basically systems and processes for that position. Right, if something happens like the next person can take that role and taking charge because they already know to a degree the things that need to be done, how they need to be done, and that can transition really well into business. Understanding that you have to create systems and processes that are simple enough that the next person can step into it. You know, maybe not knowing every, you know cross T and every dotted I, but they can run that efficiently under the time being. Does that make sense? It?

Speaker 2: 8:39

does. I think there's one other thing beyond the systems and processes piece which should be accessible. People can kind of look at that and everything, but the thing that the military focuses on, that the commercial markets really don't, is what they call commander's intent, another way of looking at what's the mission purpose. What's the mission focus?

Speaker 2: 9:01

A lot of leaders don't even have a good idea what that is. So that's a problem. If you're the leader and you're not really sure where you're going with all this, you know you're basically just trying to make it to the end of next week and you're only being asked to explain what happened last week. So you get a very short-sighted view of the universe and of your business and of your market. You don't see competitors coming at you because you're too busy looking at the tips of your toes all the time. But if you're going to um, emulate what the military does and transfer it over to the civilian commercial world, you have to teach everybody and and explain to everybody, communicate to everybody what the higher purposes of the organization. They all have to understand what the intent is. So in commander's, intent in a military sense is more than just stepping up to be the leader. It's to step up to be the leader to take the unit, to finish the job that the unit was heading towards in the first place because it was a serious or critical requirement. Easiest way to say it is there's a machine gun on a hill. That hill has to be taken so that units on the left and right can move forward. You, your squad's been given the task to take that machine gun. If you don't take the machine gun, everybody else can't do anything. That's, that's the commander's intent. Take the machine gun on that hill so everybody else can move forward. And everybody, all the way down to the private, is told this. That means everybody, all the way down to the private, can basically complete the job, complete the mission, until that machine gun is taken out.

Speaker 2: 10:26

And that's why, when you look at valor awards and all the different wars you know in the United States history anyway, it's very frequently the very junior people that are getting these awards. It's not the commanders and the people in high places, it's all these young guys that are not medics but somehow they're saving all these lives in the middle of a battle. They're grabbing people and fixing them and they're passing them up and they're towing them back and they're getting shot while they're doing it. And they're just a private. They're not a medic, but they just saved five or six people, which, as you think, is the medic's job, right? Or they weren't told to do it and they did it because they knew that was the right thing to do and it had to be done.

Speaker 2: 11:05

But when you think that the leader is supposed to be telling everybody you go, get him, you go get him and be very directive. That's not the case. So normally what happens is everybody steps up and does what they have to do in the moment, and it doesn't really matter what your rank is, your tenure, your positional authority, as long as you know what the job is and what has to be accomplished, it gets done. Hard thing to convey in in a commercial organization because everybody kind of has more of a, a self-focus. How am I going to do professionally? How am I going to do in this organization? And, and worse, the worst case is where they're thinking if I help suzy over there, suzy might look good in advance before I do, and maybe you know I'll make Susie look good but then I'll look bad because of that. And so there's all that kind of stuff going on in people's heads which is, you know, kind of different from knowing the processes in the football place, so to speak.

Speaker 1: 11:56

No, that's actually that makes a lot of sense, though, you know, is that? Is that something that you kind of talk about in your book? Be nimble, I know it's about. You know how to create a creative like Navy SEAL mindset, and that's how you win on the battlefield and in business. Is those some of the topics that you're going over and some of the strategies you go over in that book?

Speaker 2: 12:13

Yeah, all three of my business books being able to be visionary and then, when it just came out this month, be different. They all talk to this. I guess responsibility, personal and professional responsibility to learn everything you can about your job, but also about everybody else's job, and learn everything you can about the purpose and the intention of the organization that you're a part of and to see that as as really what you're doing. That's the purpose of being there and the other thing that kind of helps with that and be visionary. I talk about strategy, a lot strategy development.

Speaker 2: 12:51

Well, if you think about what I said earlier, if you're just looking at the tip of your toes and trying to live to the end of this week, you're not thinking strategically at all. You know you'll never lift your head up until the train smacks you right, right square in the face. So you you're always running a risk by not thinking big picture and thinking down the road. So if you know what you want to be as an individual, as a professional, or you know what your organization should be or you want to be, then you have to look out there and you have a little bit more flexibility now on how you're going to do it because you know why you're going to do it, you know what the what is at the other end of the, the other than the rainbow, so to speak, and that gives you flexibility.

Speaker 2: 13:28

So if, as a metaphor or comparison, if you were trying to get to a store and you had to get some medicine for your sick mother and if you didn't get the medicine within a certain amount of time, she was going to get a lot worse, and you start to go to the store the normal way and there's a car accident, you quit, you come back and say sorry, mom, it's the way it goes. No, you, if you can't back up, find another way around, which is another course of action. You eventually may get out of the car and start jogging towards, towards the store, or you call an uber, or you wave somebody down and say my mom is sick, I got to get to the store. You come up with anything and everything possible as a mechanical way to accomplish your task, to reach your objective and get it done. That's a mindset that is a military mission focused mindset. It's a mindset that's related to that commander's intent concept that I mentioned.

Speaker 1: 14:22

No, it makes a lot of sense. Now, something you mentioned earlier too, with that strategic, I guess, more team focused versus individual focus, from military versus the business world. How would you suggest a CEO or a business owner start trying to lead their team in a way that they can cultivate essentially a community similar to the military, where it's basically mission-based or project-based driven versus individuals just kind of looking out for themselves, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2: 15:02

Yeah, I'll tell you what. I've been in commercial business for a long time and even though I had a little bit of a leg up as far as the position I was in at the beginning, I was more in charge of a division as a VP director than a VP. Eventually I got a subsidiary company, but it was within a bigger company. So I started seeing all the things everybody reads about and sees in movies. You know the power plays and the personalities and every so often you see that bright light, that person that was doing everything for the right reasons, and you wanted to learn from them and you wanted to be close to that person because that felt like that was truth and everything else seemed like everybody was just kind of in it for themselves. So I lived through all that, that kind of crucible of emotions and and concerned about self-preservation etc. But I think what's missing is that and this is going to be difficult for anybody to emulate from the military, especially in special operations they, they screen everybody in the basic course. So for seals it's called basic underwater demolition, seal training or buds. In california the green berets have a thing called the qualification course or q course. The uh marsok marines have one, the army rangers have one, everybody that's special the british sas, sas, australian SAS. They have a selection phase and we don't do that in the commercial world, right. I mean, you don't have a five or six or seven week period where you're putting them through all kinds of paces, like staying up all night, working through the weekends, living off a half a pizza. You know you're running from job to job, jumping into project teams, project teams, you know, and operating with very little sleep and with deadlines and all of a sudden running out of money or running out of resources and trying to figure out how the heck we're going to do this, having the space that you're in, you know, kind of closed down on you because you don't have enough money to stay there anymore. So you got to find a new place to move everything into all that. That would be the way you would do it. You would have like this, more than a bootcamp, like a selection course for people that want to be in business, want to be entrepreneurs, for sure, and you'd get through all this and not everybody would make it, but the ones that got through that would be ready and prepared to live in that world and to thrive in that world, not just survive in that world. Now, that's never going to happen. So what we end up with is life. So you start off.

Speaker 2: 17:28

You said something earlier about the emotional intelligence and all that. You don't really have that until you get it. So you have to. You have to. You're emotional. Get one input.

Speaker 2: 17:42

Input something happens to you the first time human beings are human beings. You're going to be emotional, you're going to overreact, you're going to underreact and you're going to interact with other people that realize you're over, overreacting and all that's going to happen. And then you're going to have either somebody tell you what, what you did, and kind of talk you down and explain a better way to handle it, or you'll do it a couple more times and then start to realize this is, I look like an idiot running around like this. And then you eventually get to a point where you don't react that way to that input, to that input. So if you're a Navy SEAL and your two-year-old, you know, falls and hits their head, that's a new input. You know you don't act like a Navy SEAL. You act like a dad scared that his kids hurt and it has to do with their head. So you're going to react emotionally Now. I hope you don't have to go through like all your kids hitting the floor until you finally can handle that one. But you see what I mean. Every input is going to have an initial raw reaction and over time you will start to get better and better and better at not too much controlling the emotions. But the moment of being emotional is very quick instead of lasting a long time, and this is taught in combat leadership and it can be taught to leaders in business.

Speaker 2: 18:59

But the way you do it is you have to run them through that kind of survival test phase, and what you can do is you have to run them through that kind of survival test phase, and what you can do is you set them up in a room and you start running through scenario role playing. You give them obviously hypothetical disasters, things that have fallen apart You've lost your top salesperson, you lost your number one supplier, you lost your number one client and you give them 20 minutes to figure out how they're going to save the company and you walk out and you come back in and and they don't have to be leaders to have this have this, uh, this training they're like what are we going to do, you know. So you have to list all the actions on board, what you're going to do, and then prioritize them and then break them up and put names, names to them. So you you've gone through everything by brainstorming. You put a pecking order to that brainstorming session and then you assign leads to take chunks of that stuff in the time allotted. And then time's over and you walk in and you say so what'd you come up with?

Speaker 2: 19:55

And what happens is everybody's emotions get fired up. Everybody realizes the time is is crunching. You really want to jack it up, give them two hours and then walk in at about 55 minutes and say that we're only going to give you 10 more minutes and walk out again. Because if they think they're going to pace themselves, that's not the way real life works. You don't get to pace your way through the crisis. The crisis happens on its own timeline, right. So that starts to get them used to. They're not going to be in control of the time and and the and the pace of events, or the, the criticality or the consequences of the events, all right. So once you get past it I'm not in charge of the universe, I can't control everything Emotional learning curve and all these things.

Speaker 2: 20:37

What they do is they build up psychological resilience. That's what it really is. You're used to a particular kind of thing happening and you're calm in the moment. You're emotional for half a second, then you're calm. Then you start problem solving and everybody watching you goes. They're so mature, they're so calm, their judgment is so sound. Look how wise they are. Well, it's because you haven't seen the all the other years of them reacting to this and not doing it so well. So that's the way you do it. It just. It just takes a little bit of practice and training.

Speaker 1: 21:04

No, that definitely makes sense. Now, with the scenario that you're giving it, it kind of reminded me of like trying to see how they would do not only with the time time crunch, but also would you be looking for, let's say, the right answer, or do you think that a a slight creative thinking approach plays a role in problem solving and in leadership?

Speaker 2: 21:28

So there's two different kinds of approaches to this exercise. One is you're trying to get them to do the exercise and participate. Most people are very reluctant. Now, my last book that just came out, be Different. It's all about that trying to shake people free of their complacency and ignite their creativity, because they've spent an entire life with people telling you that's a dumb idea, or wait your turn, or wait until you're talking about your pay grade, and so they just shut down. They stop raising their hand right.

Speaker 2: 21:59

So when you try to get people into a room, it takes a while to get them to actually participate, and a couple of things you have to do is into a room, it takes a while to get them to actually participate, and a couple of things you have to do is one is keep. If you can't keep the leaders the natural leaders by org chart keep them out of the room. So let the dynamic of who's going to be in charge, who's going to, kind of facilitate and it's better if they're facilitating, because then they're going to dynamically use all the brain cells in the room. If they try to take charge, then they'll start to be kind of the alpha person and everybody else will start shutting up and following orders, and that's now. You're only as smart as one or two people, so you have somebody in the room watching all this and you want them to get used to throwing stuff up on the board. If you came in and said that's wrong, that's wrong, that's wrong, the next time you ever ran this thing, everybody would be concerned about being wrong. So you have to just let it happen. So that's pretty good. You guys, uh, what you're doing is you're looking at the process and how they put the thoughts together, and then you can do sessions like this. In one day, you can have three or four of these things and they're going to get better and evolve and come up with better, quicker, cleaner organizational responses and solutions to the problem set.

Speaker 2: 23:11

If you end up with an alpha personality does too much, one thing you can do is show everybody how that is a waste of time. 30, 40 minutes into it, the person monitoring it tells the alpha personality you know you're, you're needed across the across town. So I've been told that you got to get out of here and oh, by the way, I was just told there's only 30 minutes left. And then you watch what everybody's reaction is because they've been riding on that person's energy and leadership. The accountability has been on somebody else's shoulders. Now it's back on theirs because, as a group, they have to participate.

Speaker 2: 23:49

And so you see the difference between a committee being led by somebody and a team that all feels like they have, you know, a skin in the game. There's consequences and accountability for everybody to try to solve the problem, and these are just things you facilitate and do, but they don't require being shot at or doing lots of pushups or anything like that. But it's psychologically. It's the same stuff we do in the SEAL teams. It's just we are doing mission challenges on the whiteboard instead of instead of business challenges.

Speaker 1: 24:17

No, that makes a lot of sense. So where would you draw the line with you know having a balance between discipline and flexibility when leading a team, or you know having leaderships within a team?

Speaker 2: 24:33

So I think there's a couple of things that I have my own opinions about. Certain words, you know thought, leader, mindset, discipline, and so discipline. My perspective, discipline is what other people see. When you have repeatedly conducted yourself and performed a behavior to the point where it becomes a habit. Now for you it's a struggle to make the time to do this, repeat action, whatever it is For me like writing a book. I have to sit down, I have to write the book. I have to write at least a paragraph a day. I've got to get it done. I've got to get it done. So that's to me, that's a behavioral challenge. And then it becomes a habit and I don't even think about it. Other people, when they hear about it or they watch it, they think, wow, that guy is so disciplined.

Speaker 2: 25:27

So discipline is kind of like everybody else's wrapper, for what they're seeing you do and what you're really seeing somebody do is making a difference in their lives. Deciding to do something with purpose, changing their current behaviors, repeating it over and over again until it becomes a habit is making a difference in their lives. Deciding to do something with purpose, changing their current behaviors, repeating it over and over again until it becomes a habit. That's really what discipline is, and your discipline may get you someplace, but then you know, the world may change, consequences and circumstances may change and your perspective may change and you may have to start a whole new path because whatever got you there is just not working anymore. It's not appropriate. So discipline isn't static and mindset isn't static. You want to have a mindset that's flexible and nimble and agile and constantly humble, so that you can absorb every bit of reality, every bit of truth that you can find, so that when you make a decision or you decide to do something, you're in the best position and best posture. You don't want it to be something where I have a mindset that you know.

Speaker 2: 26:27

Marty Strong, at age 21, as a Navy SEAL second-class petty officer, decided it's my mindset. Well, that would make no sense because everything changes all the time. So the mindset again is something other people look and see. That person must have an incredible mindset because they seem to be so consistent. That's behavior. That's behavior just like discipline. So to me, you want to have a more free-spinning mind and you want to have a structure of creating habits out of behaviors that get you from where you are to where. You want to have a have a structure of creating habits out of behaviors that get you from where you, where you are, to where you want to go, and you put those two together. You can roll with the punches. You can roll with what life throws at you. You never want to get static no, it makes sense.

Speaker 1: 27:12

So what do you think in your, in your own words or your own opinion, what separates a good leader from maybe the great ones?

Speaker 2: 27:24

I think the first thing is a strong sense of accountability. You know, we have a lot of this in the news today. If, if somebody was being beaten on the side of the road and people and to say physically fit men in their 30s just kept walking by and didn't do anything, that's because they don't have a sense of accountability for anything in the social sphere. They only feel accountable for what's going on in their lives. You go back 60 years and somebody would have stepped up and tried to break it up. Stop, stop what was going on. Because years and years and years ago people were taught that you're accountable socially. You can't walk past somebody who's in pain. You can't walk past somebody who's being hurt or being threatened, and that was just the way everybody was raised and so it became a habit and it became a part of you and that accountability was there. So I think when in the military you're trying to explain to everybody that you're accountable as the leader even if you're not the full-time leader, because you had to jump into a spot in an emergency but once you're in that spot, you know from the training that it requires accountability. People that can't grasp the accountability part have a really hard time being good leaders because they're thinking more about something else than the people they're leading and the well, the well-being of the people they're leading or the organizations they're leading. Otherwise they'd be fully accountable. They'd say, whatever happens is on me and if, if joe? If joe is not doing well at his job because he's not getting any training or mentoring and I'm in charge of the company, that's on me. Right, I may not be directly in charge of Joe, but if I hear about it or learn about it, it's part of my system, it's part of my organizational culture and I'm responsible ultimately for that.

Speaker 2: 29:16

Those kinds of leaders are great leaders. They find ways to get down the road to the mission. They get get. They find the way to get to that, uh, that intentional location on the horizon and they don't drag everybody kicking and screaming. They don't burn everybody out to get there because they're accountable for all of it. They're accountable for the mind, the state of mind of their employees, you, for the financial well-being of the company, for the quality of the products or services they're delivering, for the user experience of their customers and clients. So if you think about accountability that way, it's really hard to be a jerk and be a bad leader if you're that accountable. Now you may not have all the skills to be perfect at executing everything, but if you don't have that accountability gene going on, you're never going to be a great leader, that's for sure.

Speaker 1: 30:05

No, I think that's so on point. You know great leaders, I would agree that they're accountable for themselves, their systems, their processes, their team, but they also any lack or any, basically, weakness in that chain. They take accountability as well. I mean, they need to. They fix it and they help explain what's wrong and, you know, hold their team accountable as well, but ultimately they don't shift blame right there Like that. You know that's on me. I maybe I didn't explain it well enough to you. You know how can I help you succeed. So I think that's so awesome that you kind of went into that. I want to transition a little bit, because I know you have written a bunch of books, which I think is so cool. So what drove you to get into writing novels and business books?

Speaker 2: 30:56

I've always liked writing. I don't know why, Maybe because I read so much. When I was a kid, I mean, I read. I had nonstop books in my hands. I'd finish one, start another. I was like a chain-smoking person. I always had a book somewhere close by and as I got older I always had books staged everywhere. And even now I read on average of about 60 to 65 books a year.

Speaker 2: 31:21

And when you read that much, you get an appreciation, you get a love and an appreciation for the craft of writing. And if you read that much, you see bad writing and you see good writing, you see great writing. And so because of that, when I went into the military, I was a pretty good writer in high school and I was much better than the average enlisted person. I was a lot better than the average enlisted person and I started out in the SEAL teams in the intelligence area, which meant reading reports and also writing reports, writing up briefings and stuff, and so I'd always be working for an officer, and the more I did it, the better I got, and the better I got, the more I was asked to do it. And I was also pretty good at drawing. My father was an artist. So back in those days you had to draw all these things on charts, freehand and topography of the target area and all that stuff. And so I got really good at communicating SEAL mission information and various options to execute the mission, all through the medium of writing and the medium of art. So military writing is very stilted, very technical. There's not a whole lot of character development or any of that kind of stuff and nothing but the facts. So but the practice and having senior officers even when I became an officer halfway through my 20 years, having senior officers look at all your writing and critique you and, worse than any English teacher, send you back, send you back, send you back until you had it right. You got to a point where you became very good at reviewing your own work and very good at making sure that the points and the thoughts and the themes were clear and focused and kind of punch through. There was no junk around it.

Speaker 2: 33:16

Fast forward, I decided that I wanted to write a novel. This is a little bit later in life when I had some more time on my hands. So I decided to write a sci-fi novel, a time travel novel, and when I finished writing that I said, okay, I'm going to give all the proceeds of this thing, because I knew it was going to be worth millions and millions of dollars. I'm going to give all the proceeds of this thing, because I knew it was going to be worth millions and millions of dollars. I'm going to give all the proceeds of this novel to the SEAL Veterans Foundation, to the programs they have for PTSD and traumatic brain injury. And I went to the association and said that's what I'm going to do and they said great. And then I wrote the second one, Then I wrote the third one, Then I wrote the first SEAL one and then I wrote the third time travel one. Next C&L. I had four time travel novels and five SEAL novels and I finished my 10th novel about two months ago and I'm shopping at the agents right now. So that's kind of how it happened and I have a lot of fun writing novels. I really enjoy it.

Speaker 2: 34:21

The business books I started writing because I wanted to be a consultant and a paid speaker. It's kind of my next life. After you know, I've been a CEO for 15 years, so at some point I'm going to get away from talking to HR professionals and lawyers and accountants and stuff and I want to, you know, do that and that's why I wrote being Imble and that's why I kept kind of writing and I do speaking. And I want to, you know, do that and that's why I wrote Be Nimble and that's why I kept kind of writing and I do I do speaking and I do um, consulting and mentoring and all that type of stuff and there are more platforms to be able to achieve that.

Speaker 2: 34:48

And again, I went back to kind of it's not stilted but it wasn't free-flowing, like like you have in a novel, and especially if it's a novel, like a science fiction novel, I can, can you know, I can have you come around, turn around a corner and somebody hits you with a ray gun, you turn into an elephant. I mean, I can do anything in science fiction. So that, so I didn't have the pressure was off. That's why I started with science fiction. I thought I'm not gonna be fact-checked on this, you know. And then I wrote the first SEAL book. I thought, oh, I'm going to be fact-checked on this for sure. Then I had to do all the research, which is not the fun part, but you have to do it if you're going to write about anything that's real. Yeah, that's how I ended up getting into it, and I haven't stopped.

Speaker 1: 35:31

That's so awesome and I commend you for that. I think that me personally, I'm not a science fiction person. I like biographies, autobiographies, then also like the business books, like I read a literate textbook on psychology just because that's what I was interested in the moment. So I feel like you're going to have those audiences from both genres. How do you feel like your response has been? From both the business side and the business genre or audience, and then from, like the science fiction, time travel audience?

Speaker 2: 36:04

I'll tell you what I. I'm really surprised and humbled, and well, so I had to put this in the agent stuff I'm setting up for this 10th novel and uh, I've got over 600 four and five star reviews on Amazon. For the other nine novels I think I've got like six or seven that are three stars or less, and the only one star I have is somebody thought that my first SEAL book was a nonfiction book about the SEAL teams and it was pissed off and said something like I thought this was nonfiction and it was real stuff and it gave me one star.

Speaker 2: 36:38

So that's pretty good, I mean mean I was pretty happy with that and um, just the other day I got a comment from somebody that had started reading uh, be different, this third business book and said I'm about two or three chapters in it. It's phenomenal. Well, that I'm good for another two books and I hear something like that. I mean, mean, you know it's good. I help other business people that I know that want to write books. I give them, I coach them more on the you know, you can do it kind of part of that. They all write their own books. They all write, they have their own thing they want to write about.

Speaker 2: 37:16

But the fear of failure and the feeling that nobody's what, nobody's going to want to hear anything I have to say, and that's the, that's the hardest hurdle. It's the hardest hurdle for anybody writing a non-fiction book and um, but there's a way to write it. You don't write like a textbook. You don't have to. You can write your story. You can do it like a biography and and string together, have every chapter be about you and when you learn this lesson, learn that lesson, like we're talking about. You know the first time that one input came at you and you freaked out and you make that a story.

Speaker 2: 37:48

You can do almost anything, and there are people out there that want to hear honest, true renditions of how people that have become successful started out, because that gives you not so much hope, but it gives you a kind of a guide to you don't start on top of the game. You start and you do the work and you put in the time and you, you suffer failure and you get past the failure and you learn from it. You get stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger and more adaptable, more flexible and stronger and more humble and more humble, therefore more open, and then smarter, and then wisdom comes in, and it takes a while.

Speaker 2: 38:28

You start off an apprentice and everything you're starting off for new, it's okay. Being an apprentice is okay. Nobody's expecting anything out of you. That's the good thing no, I, that's awesome.

Speaker 1: 38:38

No, I think it's so, true though you have to. What people don't realize, or at least the with social media and everything people think that entrepreneurship or starting a business is, you know all unicorns and rainbows. When you're, you're going to be forged by the fire. You know to to some degree right, and it's like the books, like you're, that you've written. You know like those some degree right, and it's like the books that you've written. You know like those kinds of books. I like those because what may seem like common knowledge or common sense to you because you've done it and lived it for so many years, it's not common sense to everyone. It's only common to you because you know it right.

Speaker 1: 39:14

So once you start, you know, once someone like you writes that first book and gets over that fear of you know what do I have to say? You know that they should already know this or they might already know this, that I don't want to just put it down. Those are the things that you know really stick out to people, because you have a different perspective on maybe a situation, maybe an obstacle they're facing in their life, and those are the ones that really become, in my opinion, the most relatable, especially in the entrepreneurial space. So I think that's so awesome that you took that leap and got into that, even though you can go all into science fiction and have fun with the ray guns and everything like that, but you're able to also split your time right. You can do the ones that are fun, you do the ones that are more serious, that are going to align with where you want to go and pivot on your next phase of life. You're able to do both. That's something that is also really unique. I do commend you for that.

Speaker 2: 40:10

That is awesome I have been alternating now for a couple of years. What happens is you get to the end of the novel writing and you're starting to get kind of this itch in the back of your, your brain, that your ideas are flying around for another, you know more serious book and vice versa.

Speaker 1: 40:29

You get to the end of editing third and fourth um draft of the of the serious business book and now you're starting to get an itch for putting the story together and I think if I just pounded them out in a row, I would, it would get stale and old and, in in your opinion, it would probably be starting to get repetitive. You know, because you're stuck on the idea versus letting your mind be able to shift off of serious to fun to serious to fun and get your updated, you know, view on a perspective or, uh, you know an angle on an issue, right, um, but one. But one thing. Before we we kind of wrap up a little bit, I like to ask people right, you have a legacy wall, the marty strong legacy wall, and on this wall it could be any message that you want to leave for the up and coming generations. What would that message be?

Speaker 2: 41:23

Life is full of opportunities. It's also full of failure to achieve those opportunities. Never quit, never, ever quit, never ever quit. Shoot for it, jump through the hoop, try it, fight for it. If you fail, dust yourself off, look around for another opportunity and attack and do the same thing over again, and they're never going to end. You're 75 years old. You could still be doing that. There's no. There's no age. There's no age attached to any of this. You don't have to have done it right out of high school, right out of college, or it's just look around and you see it, whether it's marrying the person you just fell in love with or taking a job. You think probably doesn't make sense, but you really think that's a great challenge for you. Just go for it.

Speaker 1: 42:11

No, that's awesome. Where can people connect with you and learn more about what you have going on?

Speaker 2: 42:15

and definitely get some of those books, learn more about what you have going on and definitely get some of those books. Yeah, it's simple. Just go to martystrongcom. All my speaking programs are there. There's access to all the books, hyperlinks to Amazon, et cetera, and martystrongcom.

Speaker 1: 42:31

Well, perfect, I'll be putting that in the show notes. Guys, if you guys are listening, check out his books. Honestly, there are some cool topics. I have already looked them over and I'm already getting me some as well. Make sure you guys share this episode with a friend. Right, leave us that five-star review. But more importantly, marty, thank you so much for taking the time to drop some knowledge for the audience. My pleasure Devin Only positive thoughts. Just in the game of life, my set calls the shots, got my mind on the prize. I can't be distracted. I stay on my grind. No time to be slackin'. I hustle harder. I go against the current Cause. I know my mind is rich to be collected.